'Shield' Back on Duty in April

Michael Chiklis on 'The Shield'

Michael Chiklis on 'The Shield'

Zap2It.com

A long wait for fans of "The Shield" will come to an end this spring.

FX has set a premiere date for the show's sixth season: Tuesday, April 3, a week after new drama "Dirt" ends its season. The premiere will come just over a year after "The Shield's" fifth-season finale; that's the longest gap between seasons the show has had.

The long dry spell comes after a season five finale that saw Lem (Kenneth Johnson) murdered at the hands of one of his strike team partners, Shane (Walton Goggins), who mistakenly believed Lem had given up his crew to Internal Affairs. "Shield" creator Shawn Ryan says the bulk of season six, which will run for 10 weeks, will focus on Vic's (Michael Chiklis) search for Lem's killer, unaware that he's standing right beside him.

Recent Golden Globe winner Forest Whitaker will reprise his role as Internal Affairs investigator John Kavanaugh in season six, though Ryan declined to reveal how many episodes he'll be around.

The show is also gearing up for production on its seventh and final season. Those 13 episodes are scheduled to begin shooting in late spring, with a projected airdate of early 2008.